Passing Judgment on the Justice Lords
by Lorendiac
Summary: Yesterday night five Justice Lords were depowered and captured. Today the League must decide what to do with these fanatical analogs of Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and J'onn J'onnz.
1. Send Them Back Where They Came From?

**Author's Note:** This is set in the DCAU, just after the _Justice League_ episode "A Better World, Part 2." That one ended as five members of the Justice Lords of a parallel Earth had just been depowered and captured, thanks to a device invented by Lex Luthor; one he had used as a bargaining chip in getting a full pardon from the United States government. For quite some time I've been wondering: "Just what happened to those depowered characters _after_ they were defeated?"

Several months ago I typed out a list of four possible answers to that question, along with notes on some of the potential drawbacks to one answer or another. Some ideas crossed my mind for interesting follow-up tales involving one or more of the Justice Lords, but before I could write such a story, I would need to decide what the League actually _did_ with those guys after capturing them. Unable to make up my mind at the time, I shoved the problem aside for awhile.

Recently I was pondering the question once again, and it finally occurred to me that it might be interesting to write a story showing exactly what happened when the seven founding members of the League were arguing about the problem!

This is a three-chapter story. I've already written all of the second chapter, and a rough draft of the third, but I plan on letting a few days go by between installments.

* * *

**Passing Judgment on the Justice Lords**

**Chapter One: Send Them Back Where They Came From?**

After Lex Luthor had earned his presidential pardon by depowering five Justice Lords, the League had acted quickly to keep their captives isolated, transporting them up to the Watchtower and locking them into holding cells before any authorities down on the ground could try to make the arrests themselves.

Batman had wanted an immediate discussion of what to do with the Lords, but Superman had overruled him, saying, "After what we've been through, I think at least some of us can use several hours of rest before we reconvene tomorrow to reach a decision. Twelve noon, Eastern Standard time. Until then, we'll take two-hour shifts monitoring the cells to make sure the prisoners don't go anywhere."

Now it was 12:01 PM, all seven of the League were seated around a table, and it was time to get down to brass tacks. Shayera was hopeful that they could wrap it all up in ten or fifteen minutes and then she could go back to convalescing. Being blasted by the grimmer and grittier version of John Stewart had not done her internal organs any good.

Superman wanted to establish clear nomenclature first. "I propose using the word 'Other' to mark the differences between ourselves and our nastier namesakes. For instance, 'The Other Superman' or just 'Other-Superman' will mean the Kryptonian guy we have locked away."

Batman nodded. "Now there is something I should share. My counterpart—or Other-Batman, if you prefer—said that forty-eight hours after he sent us home, he would open up a portal to our Watchtower again in case we had anything or anybody we wanted to send back through. He seemed to be of the opinion that if we couldn't defeat the rest of the Justice Lords within that timeframe, we probably never would. We still have almost thirty-six hours to make a decision."

"I'm still not happy about leaving _him_ operational," John observed.

"For the first time in my life, I was up against a man who knew _all_ my moves and weak spots as well as I do," Batman said bitterly. "He is also the only person who really understands how his portal generator works. Those things did not give me a strong bargaining position. What he finally agreed to was that he would open the portal to send all of us home, and that he would never again support an invasion of our world. My side of the bargain included two key elements: First: We would not try to capture him within the next few days if he behaved himself. Second: We would, in fact, return home to tend to our own back yard instead of spending a long time trying to forcibly rearrange the way things are done on his world. Since the only Justice Lord left running free over there is the one _without_ superpowers, I believe things will work themselves out after the downtrodden masses realize there is no longer a Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, or Martian Manhunter to stamp out the fires of dissent."

"Given that we couldn't return home without his portal generator, and he might be able to destroy it in an eyeblink if he felt too threatened, your deal may have been the best we were going to get," J'onn J'onnz conceded.

Wonder Woman asked, "Did Other-Batman know what we'd do to his friends?"

"Highly unlikely," Batman responded. "At the time, even _I_ didn't know our Earth's Lex Luthor had already invented a power disruptor. Clearly, their Luthor never did; I suppose he was too busy campaigning for the White House. My counterpart probably expected us to try _temporary_ measures to gain the upper hand—and he may have thought that if we won, we'd simply boot some temporarily-subdued Justice Lords back through the portal so we wouldn't have to worry about them any more."

"What do you mean by temporary measures?" Flash asked.

"If need be, you could have zoomed toward Other-Superman with a chunk of kryptonite clenched in your fist. If he didn't realize the danger in time to fly away, you'd have him helpless. Then we might trap Other-Martian Manhunter in a ring of fire. If those two were sidelined, the odds would be heavily in our favor as we attacked the remaining Justice Lords. Then we could worry about ways and means of keeping them all subdued in the long run. Keeping Other-Superman in a room flooded with red solar radiation would be a start."

Shayera blinked. Batman had rattled off that plan so quickly, you'd almost think he was reciting something he had worked out in his head long before this mess began. Ways and means of quickly taking down any given member of the League in a worst-case scenario? Plans which he took it for granted that his counterpart had also formulated soon after joining the Justice Lords?

Not that there was anything wrong with that! She had done much the same as part of her intelligence-gathering mission, although she hoped duty would never require implementing those ideas.

As a career military officer, Shayera understood the value of having a wide range of contingency plans drafted out for scary problems which might never arise. That way, if one of them did crop up suddenly, you could reach into your files and dust off the right plan for quick guidance. No need to start sweating blood in the frantic attempt to develop an intelligent counterstrategy from scratch while brave soldiers were already dying.

While those thoughts flashed through her mind, Superman was trying to get the conversation back on track. "It didn't happen that way, so let's stick to the current problem. We've got five prisoners who once conquered a world. What shall we do with them?"

Still hopeful that this meeting wouldn't drag on and on, Shayera said, "I supposed we would send them right back where they came from. That's where they committed most of their crimes. Now that they won't find it so easy to thumb their noses at local authorities, I'm sure someone will be eager to prosecute them."

"It might be hard finding an unbiased judge and jury," Superman observed. "If every citizen of every nation on that Earth was living in fear of the Justice Lords for the last two years, how are you going to select a panel of jurors who will all swear they have no personal grudge against any of the defendants, and no strong preconceptions about their possible guilt? Anyone who did say that would probably be lying through his teeth. It could turn into a regular monkey court."

Shayera shrugged. "Not my problem! If zillions of people hate them and want revenge, it's because the Justice Lords _earned_ that hatred fair and square. Let them face the natural consequences of their own mistakes."

"We probably shouldn't trust Other-Batman to hand his old buddies over to the FBI, but that's no biggie," Flash said cheerfully. "Superman and me can carry the prisoners at super-speed to some handy jail. Leave notes pinned on their chests explaining that these Justice Lords don't have their powers any more, so they can stand trial for their crimes. Then we zip back through the portal and let the people on that side clean up their own messes."

"I would feel much better about that approach if we knew more about the ways in which their world deviates from our own," J'onn J'onnz said. "How many fanatical _supporters_ did the Justice Lords accumulate during their two-year reign? Could those supporters rescue them from captivity? On the other hand, what about lynch mobs getting to them first, and killing the Lords before they ever stand trial? There must be a lot of anger bottled up."

"All good questions," Wonder Woman conceded.

Shayera had trouble with her friends' shared assumption that it would somehow be a _bad_ thing if the Justice Lords died quick, messy deaths at the hands of justifiably angry civilians. The Thanagarian attitude towards such extreme offenders was different. Of course Thanagar had a court system too—but _everyone_ knew the price of high treason. If you staged a coup meant to take over the government, and ultimately failed, then your death was guaranteed after the defenders of the old status quo finally got the drop on you.

Someone might go through the motions of giving you a fair trial before carrying out the automatic execution.

Or they might not bother taking you alive in the first place. "The would-be tyrant and his cronies died while resisting arrest" was quicker and more efficient, without changing the end result in the slightest. In such extreme circumstances, a villain's abrupt death would not be listed as a tragedy in the history books.

But she knew her friends in the League disagreed with that approach.

"Let's suppose a best-case scenario as far as the justice system is concerned," John Stewart said. "The five depowered Justice Lords get a fair trial in a federal court over yonder. Their guilt on dozens of charges is proven six ways from Sunday. They get convicted and sentenced. Held in a maximum-security area for their own protection. No abuse from guards or other inmates. Maybe they avoid capital punishment by agreeing to cooperate with the legitimate authorities; answering all sorts of questions. Or maybe they end up on Death Row."

Batman nodded. "Very well. For the sake of argument, we'll say it all happens strictly by the book. Civil rights are respected, and so forth. What are you leading up to?"

"How long do you think they'll actually _stay_ in prison?" John looked around the table, waiting for a response. No one spoke immediately; some of the others just looked confused. So he elaborated on his point: "If our counterparts have what are basically our own backgrounds, then some of them have powerful friends who may come looking. For instance, I suspect my counterpart was still considered a member in good standing of the Green Lantern Corps. What if the Guardians on Oa get worried after they haven't heard from him for a few months, and find they can't call him long-distance via his ring, so they send somebody to check? What if he's rescued from durance vile and provided with a replacement ring?"

"You don't think anyone checking up would see fit to leave a fellow Green Lantern in a federal penitentiary—if that was where they found him serving a long sentence?" Wonder Woman asked.

"In _our_ universe, they would probably take the time to scan the court records and decide he'd been justly convicted," John conceded. "But in that other universe, who knows? I've always believed that if I tried to make myself a dictator with this ring, the Guardians would catch on fairly quick and take it away from me."

Flash was catching on. "But Other-GL was doing that for _two years,_ and his Guardians never lifted a finger to stop him!"

"Exactly. That's what worries me. Maybe his Guardians are more hard-nosed than mine when it comes to putting 'law and order' above 'free will.' Or maybe not. What if they are simply more . . . preoccupied . . . than the bunch I know, and never had a clue what he was doing on his home turf?"

"Preoccupied? How so?" Wonder Woman asked.

John grimaced. "I can imagine a few ways for it to happen. Who knows how many differences there are between our universe and that one, especially as you get further and further away from this solar system? What if the Other Guardians are facing some horrible problem thousands of light-years away, bigger and scarier than anything I ever saw or heard of? Maybe they just can't spare the time to monitor what happens on every _backwater_ planet. In that case, if a Green Lantern found a way to contact them, saying he'd been mugged and needed a new ring in a hurry, they might just issue him a spare with a full charge as fast as possible—without bothering to check his story. Then my counterpart uses it to break out of prison, recharges it every day with the battery he still has hidden somewhere, and he's back in business!"

"A disturbing picture." Wonder Woman sighed. "I hadn't thought of this before, but what if my counterpart, languishing in a prison cell in her home dimension, finds a way to send a distress call to Themyscira? Amazons would do _whatever_ it took to rescue a sister who was the helpless captive of mortal _men_. It could even cause a war." She considered that for a moment and then qualified her position. "Unless their gods ordered the Other Amazons _not_ to interfere, but we sure can't count on that happening."

"And all this assumes we trust Other-Batman not to have a change of heart and spring his buddies somehow after we're not looking!" Flash said suddenly. He looked over at their own Dark Knight. "I mean, seriously, Bats, is there any maximum-security facility on Earth where you, starting as a free man on the outside, would find it _impossible_ to somehow sneak in, extract at least one prisoner, and make a clean getaway?"

Batman didn't respond right away. Shayera had _expected_ him to just say "No" and leave it at that, but apparently he felt the question deserved a more thoughtful answer.

After a full minute, Batman said carefully, "I rarely need to penetrate such places, so I have to speculate about the ones I've never visited. But I can't think of any prison where I'm _positive_ I would fail in the attempt if I didn't have metahuman accomplices to help. At a very rough estimate . . . odds might be at least sixty-forty in my favor, since I wouldn't even try _until_ I had done my homework and believed my plan was as good as it could get."

"Thanks; that's what I was afraid of—" Flash stopped talking as Batman cut him off with a raised palm.

"Those would be _my_ chances, but we're not really talking about me; we're talking about my counterpart. My tactics would be limited by my refusal to kill. His might not be. If he convinced himself that a few human lives were regrettably expendable in the pursuit of a 'greater good,' then I'd say _his_ chance of succeeding in a ruthless commando-style raid, using high explosives and anything else he thought he needed, would be a near-certainty."

"Well, that just made me feel warm and fuzzy all over," Flash muttered. "But getting back to my point—what really worries me isn't _just_ the idea of Other-Batman breaking his _powerless_ friends out of prison. It's the idea that after he got them back, he might study their brainwaves and biochemistry and stuff and find a clever way to _reverse_ the effects of Luthor's power disruptor."

Shayera said, "Even if nobody finds a cure, we're talking about members of at least four different species who all got zapped by the _same_ weapon. Can we afford to gamble that _none_ of them will just naturally feel the effects wearing off over time? Remember, if Other-Batman simply leaves his portal generator unplugged for the next thirty years after we've send his friends back, we'll have no way to check on what they're up to!"

"I hadn't thought of the possibility of their powers being restored," Superman confessed. "Perhaps I just have more faith in Lex Luthor than you do." He winced. "And there's a sentence I never thought I'd hear myself say!"

"We all know what you mean," Batman assured him. "You're talking about your confidence in his scientific genius; not his moral fiber. Speaking for the television cameras, he boasted that those powers were _permanently_ removed by his invention. Luthor wouldn't risk getting egg on his face if he thought there was even a one percent chance the claim wouldn't prove true."

Superman nodded. "But Flash and Hawkgirl raise a frightening point. Yesterday night was that gadget's first field test. Nobody knows anything about long-term effects. Especially when we're dealing with such a motley assortment of targets as a Kryptonian, a Martian, a Thanagarian, a human with a power ring, and an Amazon whose powers were magical gifts from Greek goddesses."

John Stewart was scowling. "I'm going to feel awfully _dumb_ if we turn the Justice Lords over to the authorities on their world, promising it's safe to treat them the same as any other captured criminals, and then a few years from now Other-Superman is back to his old self. Or, if we never heard from that Earth again, I'd always wonder if we were just an irritating _road bump_ for those fascists before they picked up right where they'd left off!"

"Lack of opportunity for follow-up seems to be a big problem here," Flash suggested. "Do we all agree we _shouldn't_ just send them back home if we're bound to completely lose track of them afterwards?"

"I agree," J'onn said heavily. "The risks are too great, and we must assume that our ability to intervene again would be nonexistent."

The others chimed in. Soon it was clear that the idea of simply dropping the whole problem in the hands of the Other-USA (or any other government of that Earth) had been unanimously rejected.

* * *

**Author's Note:** When I went back and double-checked, I found that we don't actually see Lex Luthor saying 'those powers were removed permanently' in his press conference at the very end. However, we only saw about _25 seconds_ of that press conference, so it stands to reason that he said a great deal more than the few sentences we heard before the final credits started. I choose to assume that he did make such a claim, somewhere along the line.

For what it's worth—right after Luthor used his device, the good Superman said to his nasty counterpart, "It's called a power disruptor. And yours are now gone." In context, I sure _didn't_ get the feeling that Superman meant: "_Temporarily_ gone, but don't worry! Give it a little time and you'll get them back!"

Given that Lex Luthor is not exactly known for his gentle, merciful way of dealing with enemies, I figure if he designed something that could successfully remove Superman's powers at all, along with those of any other super-powered entities who have occasionally annoyed him, he'd do his best to make the effect permanent for any and all possible targets. (Whether or not he succeeded in that goal, however, is very open to argument, since the cartoons never provided us with any long-term follow-up on the fates of the Justice Lords whom he had zapped.)


	2. Weighing Other Alternatives

**Chapter Two: Weighing Other Alternatives**

"Right!" Flash said. "So the next idea that springs to mind is treating them the same way we usually handle homegrown villains. Turn them over to the authorities to be tried, convicted, and locked away right here on our Earth!"

Shayera reflected that this solution would require Diana, John, and herself to contact their superiors (on Themyscira, Oa, and Thanagar, respectively) with warnings about these doppelgangers. New recognition codes could be set up so that a cry for help from one of the imprisoned Justice Lords would be screened out as a false alarm.

Even as she thought about mentioning this, John Stewart began to speak.

"Locked away for how long, and on what charges?" he demanded. "Ambushing us with that energy grid, and then blasting Shayera so she needed a hospital, only happened on their Earth. Just like all the other nasty stuff they'd done before we ever heard of them. Our Earth's courts don't have jurisdiction over what happens elsewhere. Sure, we might get the Justice Lords on a few petty charges—'identity theft' and 'excessive force' and so forth—but since they have no previous criminal records hereabouts, they'd be out on the streets again before we knew it. That just doesn't work for me."

Flash said in a long-suffering tone, "Hey, I didn't say the idea was perfect. But I figured we had to address it sooner or later, so I tossed it out there to get the ball rolling!"

"Okay, okay, you have a point," John admitted.

Wonder Woman said diplomatically, "Let's not rule out Flash's idea too fast. If Other-Batman will leave the portal open long enough, it might be possible to get the governments of our USA and Other-USA to make a special treaty to cover this. What if the Justice Lords were tried and convicted for their crimes over there, but then our USA agreed to accept custody of the prisoners and hold them for life sentences over here, where the Justice League could monitor the situation?"

"A compromise involving the best of both worlds, as it were?" J'onn J'onnz mused. "But what if they got death sentences instead? As I understand it, the appeals process could drag on for years or decades—"

"It _doesn't matter_ if they get 'life' or 'death' or any other type of sentence," Batman interrupted. "Not if they're going to be incarcerated on our Earth according to the standard rules."

"You don't sound enthusiastic about the concept," Shayera commented.

"Because I'm not. It's a terrible idea. It would create unacceptable risks for a great many people. I suspect that the Justice Lords have shared many secrets with one another. Any of the five prisoners, if given access to a telephone or an e-mail account or a face-to-face interview with a journalist, could spill the beans on all sorts of things."

"Secret identities!" Superman said. "You're talking about my private life in Metropolis, and yours in Gotham, and Flash's in Central City. Suddenly everyone knows who we are, and the fallout creates deadly danger for friends, relatives, girlfriends, anyone whom villains might choose to target just because their deaths would give us extra-large doses of misery."

"That's one piece of the problem," Batman agreed. "A Justice Lord might do that to us, even convincing himself it would be for our own good in the long run."

"How so?" Wonder Woman wanted to know.

"Never underestimate a fanatic's ability to rationalize doing whatever he feels like doing anyway," Batman said. "One of the Lords might decide that if I lost my identity as . . . someone else, and if the people I most cared about in Gotham were killed by my old enemies after the news broke, or else were forced into running away to hide in faraway places as the only way to avoid being killed, then the shock and alienation might push me closer and closer to the Justice Lords mindset. Ready to impose absolute order on this wicked world so it would stop hurting me so badly."

"I see," Wonder Woman said thoughtfully. "And the fact that this also served as revenge against you for helping to overthrow the Justice Lords would just be a tiny fringe benefit; not a key factor in the cruel decision to turn your personal life into chaos?"

"That's what the one who blew the whistle on me would keep telling himself."

"Hold on," Flash said. "I admit I don't want my real name in all the headlines, but what's the alternative? Lock up all five of them in some cave in Antarctica that nobody but us knows about, with a ten-year supply of food and water? Concealed sensors all over the place to monitor their every move and see if any powers are creeping back? Do we have the right to treat anybody that way on our own hook?"

"That's fairly close to what I had in mind," Batman said with as much approval in his tone as Shayera had ever heard him use in speaking to Flash. "I suppose Superman would feel the Phantom Zone was overkill in this case, when they don't have any scary powers _at the moment_."

Superman looked at him. "I'm glad you understand that much about my outlook. I don't use that projector lightly. I certainly don't exile powerless people to the Zone just because they _might conceivably_ become superpowered at some future date."

"Phantom Zone or no Phantom Zone, Flash had a point," John Stewart objected. "If _everybody_ on Earth felt entitled to lock up anybody else who had learned some embarrassing personal secrets, half the human race would have the other half in cages, and then where would we be?"

Batman gave John a cold stare. (If it was meant to visibly rattle the Green Lantern, then it failed miserably, as Shayera was pleased to note.) "'Personal secrets'? Do you think that's _all_ I'm worried about? Superman mentioned secret identities being compromised, and I said that was just _one piece_ of the problem. I wasn't kidding. This isn't about isolating five prisoners strictly for _my_ convenience. The potential problems with letting those Justice Lords run off at the mouth in public are much larger than anything that might happen to me, or to you, or to any of us and our loved ones."

John wasn't giving up. "Much larger? Can you give me a for-instance?"

Batman cocked his head. "_You_ can't think of any? Don't the Guardians of the Universe trust their Green Lanterns with any items that shouldn't be shared with every Tom, Dick, and Harry?"

He waited a few seconds; Shayera supposed he was giving John a fair chance to reject that suggestion. Which didn't happen. John was suddenly looking very thoughtful—but didn't open his mouth to share his thoughts right away.

Batman shifted his gaze to Diana. "What about the Amazons? Don't they have any secrets that should stay hidden? Or the Thanagarians, for that matter," he added with a quick nod to Shayera. "And who knows what sort of dirt the Justice Lords dug up on other people and governments during their two-year tyranny, things that could be equally damaging to the counterparts on this Earth? Have any of you ever _imagined_ what damage Superman might do if he had no inhibitions against using his X-Ray vision on anything that caught his interest, and then sharing the juiciest items with the tabloids? Or J'onn, with his telepathy? I have. We all have secrets, and some of them could cause harm to millions if they became common knowledge."

A heavy silence fell upon the conference room. Shayera was shocked to realize she hadn't even considered the possibility that her counterpart might get angry enough to break solemn oaths by spewing out the secrets of the Thanagarian military—but now that Batman had raised the idea, it couldn't be ignored. From the looks on their faces, the other five Leaguers were also imagining what could happen in a televised interview with the captive Justice Lords . . . and hating the ideas that occurred to them.

Shayera finally broke the silence. "I don't hear anybody saying Batman is dead wrong in his assessment, now that he's explained it properly."

She waited a decent interval, and nobody took the bait, so she resumed. "I suspect we are all coming to agree that we don't want our fanatical doppelgangers to spill their guts about everything they know; not if we're going to keep them on this side of the dimensional divide, as per our previous vote. On the other hand, I know most of you will say that killing them in the name of security is also out of the question, so I won't dwell on that.

"It seems to me that we still have two basic strategies we can pursue within those parameters. One was already mentioned: Imprison them ourselves, where no one without Need-to-Know will ever have a chance to hear any stories the Justice Lords may want to tell. A lonely way for them to live, I admit. The second option is to let them socialize with other people all they like—after they no longer have access to the information that has us all so uptight."

Flash played straight man. "Run that by me again? How were you planning to surgically remove all the scary stuff from their brains?"

"Not surgically," she corrected. "Telepathically. And I think it would be best if all their specialized knowledge of their old identities and activities were removed or suppressed in one fell swoop. Then they could make fresh starts with new names."

Superman blinked. "You mean we'd turn them loose in a big city as regular civilians?"

"Why not? At that point, inflicting any further punishment for things they no longer remembered doing would strike even me as excessive. In effect, we would have 'rehabilitated' them into law-abiding citizens, which is supposedly a primary goal of your elaborate penal system."

"'Supposedly' is the right word," Batman growled.

Shayera ignored the interruption. "We could set up mechanisms to alert us if their metabolisms started regaining superpowers—I suspect it would be a very gradual process if it happened at all. I also assume that elaborate reconstruction of their personalities, without turning them into imbeciles, would take a very delicate touch."

Six sets of eyes turned towards the only telepath in the room, who looked less than happy at the attention.

"What Hawkgirl proposes is feasible in theory," J'onn J'onnz finally said. "But there are serious ethical problems. I could launch a telepathic assault on a powerful foe in the heat of battle. I am exceedingly reluctant to tamper with another being's core memories and behavior patterns when there is no innocent life in immediate jeopardy."

"We could always ask Doctor Fate to do it," Flash offered. "Five will get you ten he has a spell up his sleeve to fit the occasion. Betcha he could change their faces at the same time, so people _wouldn't_ always be saying, 'Hey, that guy in the leather jacket looks just like Superman!' Would that work better for you?"

J'onn shook his head. "Voting to ask someone else to do such dirty work on my behalf would not leave me with clean hands, would it?"

"Besides, Fate may feel the same way you do," Superman observed. "I don't understand him well enough to predict his reactions, but he just might refuse to indulge in drastic tampering with a helpless prisoner who wanted to keep his own identity. _I_ wouldn't be happy about it either . . . not on _those_ terms. But tell me, J'onn, what if the subject knew precisely what we had in mind and gave informed consent in advance?"

"That . . . might make the difference. But how were you planning to obtain such consent?"

"By giving them the opportunity to choose," Superman said firmly. "Hawkgirl was right: Either of those approaches could maintain the necessary security on the big secrets. But on something this touchy, I don't feel right about settling this by just voting to pick one answer or the other, and then forcing the same answer upon all five prisoners at once. We may not like them, but we can still grant them some dignity where mental privacy is concerned. I propose that we bring them in here, explain these options, and ask each Justice Lord to select whatever strikes him or her as the lesser of two evils."

"Second the motion," Wonder Woman said promptly, and things proceeded from there.

* * *

**Author's Note:** When I started writing this story, I still didn't know exactly what the League would end up doing. As I said in another Author's Note at the beginning, several months ago I drafted out four possible answers, along with some notes on possible flaws in one approach or another. You've now seen the League examine all four. Those answers were:

1) Send the depowered Justice Lords back to their own Earth to stand trial. After all, that's where most of their crimes were committed.  
2) Have them tried and convicted on the League's own Earth. That way, the League can keep a watchful eye on them.  
3) Secretly imprison them without any nation's justice system knowing anything about it. (Looking back at my old notes, I see that I considered the Phantom Zone as one way to do that, but it isn't the only way, and when I researched this story by re-watching a few old episodes, including "The Doomsday Sanction," I noticed that Superman made it clear he will only use that option for real worst-case scenarios, such as a rampaging Doomsday. I decided that _depowered_ enemies don't qualify as "worst-case" by a long shot.)  
4) Mindwipe them to make sure they won't spill their guts about any really dangerous secrets they know (such as secret identities).

Some of the objections to 1) and 2) which have now come up in the course of this discussion were problems I _hadn't_ really considered during my first look at the problem several months ago. I was also surprised when Superman finally insisted on giving each Justice Lord a _choice_ between 3) and 4). Until then, I'd been thinking the League would just have to vote on it, and I was trying to figure out which heroes would vote one way and which would vote the other—but Superman pulled a fast one on me!

Chapter Three will be the end of this story. I already have it as a rough draft. Basically, we get a look at how the Justice Lords react when offered two unhappy options to choose from.


	3. Final Decisions

**Author's Note: **When I posted Chapter Two, I already had a rough draft of Chapter Three typed out—but the more I looked at it, the _less _satisfactory I found it to be. It seemed to lack any punch; any sense of a dramatic climax taking place. I knew how each of the five captive Justice Lords would vote to be treated; I knew how I might be able to build on that in later fanfics; but I felt the third chapter (and thus the entire story) just "stopped" suddenly . . . instead of giving the feeling of a "proper ending." So I set the whole thing aside . . . for what has proved to be a ridiculously long time.

Even now, I'm far from sure that I've overcome the aforementioned problem, but I finally decided it was time to grit my teeth, try to whip this into shape, and actually _post_ the final chapter, for better or for worse. Judge for yourselves!

* * *

**Chapter Three: Final Decisions**

Batman and Flash had been delegated by Superman to escort the five prisoners into the conference room; possibly because they were the only members of the League who wouldn't be in the awkward position of trying to order "themselves" around.

They didn't report any trouble as they herded the Justice Lords into the room, so Shayera assumed there had been no futile attempts at violence.

You'd think that losing all their powers and special weapons would have caused a group of tyrants to look . . . deflated. Or depressed. Or somehow diminished.

It didn't seem to be working that way.

Sure, none of the prisoners had flown into the room, and they weren't putting up a fight, but they sure weren't cringing either. Other-Superman looked angry, Other-J'onn looked stoic, Other-Hawkgirl looked impatient, Other-Wonder Woman looked frustrated by her captors' folly, and Other-Green Lantern just looked grim. In fact, Shayera rather expected some or all of the five to start making impassioned speeches about how it _still_ wasn't too late to make this version of Earth into "a better world" by doing things in the Justice Lords style.

But they didn't.

Possibly because they'd talked it over during their night in confinement, and had realized none of the League were likely to listen to such speeches at this point? Luring people into an electrified trap was not the best way to make them more receptive to your propaganda in the future . . .

(Shayera had never enjoyed the thankless task of delivering lectures to people who were just going to tune her out anyway, and it stood to reason that her counterpart would feel much the same. Perhaps the other Lords shared the sentiment—at least, now that they were no longer in a position to _force_ people to listen?)

While she was thinking about this, Superman had stood up to face the quintet of prisoners as he addressed them. He began: "Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sure you're wondering what comes next. We've been debating that, and finally found an approach we can all live with."

(Shayera reflected that if _she_ had called these people "ladies and gentlemen" at this point, it would have carried a strong edge of sarcasm. But when the Man of Steel said the same words, it came across as an automatic courtesy; _not_ meant as a subtle jab at the uncivilized fashion in which the Justice Lords had mistreated "invited guests" after luring them through the portal in the first place.)

Superman was continuing. "This may not have been the hardest decision I'd ever faced, but it was certainly one of the most . . . distasteful."

He paused.

None of the prisoners took the opportunity to express any sympathy for _his_ plight. (Shayera hoped he hadn't expected them to.)

After about ten seconds, Superman started talking again.

"We have decided that we _cannot_, in good conscience, allow the lot of you to be incarcerated in any government-run prison on your Earth _or_ ours. I don't propose to review the reasons for that decision. You can probably guess them if you try hard enough. On the other hand, we absolutely reject the idea of killing you as a security measure."

"Big of you," Other-Superman said bitterly. "But I suppose giving your Luthor a get-out-of-jail-free card, and then killing us when we'd hardly done anything _on your Earth_ compared to what he's been doing for years, would just be _too_ hypocritical?"

Wisely, Superman allowed his counterpart to vent and then simply _ignored_ what the man had said, rather than letting himself be suckered into reopening that particular debate. "We sought other solutions, and ended up with two on the table. First option: We can sidestep the normal rules and imprison you ourselves in some secret place. If it comes to that, we will make the living conditions as humane as possible, but you will not be allowed _any_ form of communication with the outside world. Except for a way to send encrypted signals directly to the Watchtower—if you need to report a medical emergency, for instance. Such imprisonment will _probably_ be for life, although we are willing to review that decision at regular intervals to see if changing circumstances have opened up new alternatives.

"Second option: We can purge your memories of all sensitive information, which in practice would mean removing _all_ memory of your costumed careers and old identities. Once that was done, however, you would be turned loose to commence new lives as civilians."

That hung in the air for a bit. Evidently, Superman preferred to give the five Lords enough time to ponder the ramifications of such mind-meddling.

Other-Wonder Woman was the first to speak. "'Turned loose.' Without our powers and equipment, of course. Like taking an unwanted pet and releasing it out in the woods and saying 'shucks, it can fend for itself from now on'?"

Superman clarified what _turned loose_ would actually mean. "We _wouldn't_ just render you amnesiac and drop you in a dark alley, in civilian clothes, with some cash in your pockets, and then wash our hands of you from that moment forward. Instead, we'd hold you here—or somewhere—for as long as it took to set you up with cover identities, Social Security numbers, et cetera, so that you could each apply for legitimate jobs which you were qualified to fill." He paused as if struck by a new thought. "Come to think of it, perhaps we could skip a few steps in that area. Perhaps you'd _already_ have the job waiting for you when you woke up with the new identity implanted in your head—such details can be worked out on a case-by-case basis. Some of us have strings we could pull; ways to set you up with gainful employment if we vouch for you to the right people."

Shayera decided Superman was deliberately dancing around the fact that Batman, in his capacity as billionaire Bruce Wayne, could easily find (or create) a few jobs in his corporate empire for people whom he wanted to help land on their feet. Like most of the other Leaguers, Shayera still wasn't supposed to know who Batman was beneath the pointy-eared cowl; ergo, Superman didn't want to spell this out in front of the entire team!

But it was a fair guess that the Justice Lords all knew each other's secret identities by now (at least, regarding those members who had ever bothered to maintain them). If so, they'd grasp the implication about good jobs being available at a moment's notice if Batman wanted it to happen that way.

Other-Green Lantern spoke now. "The way you're talking about that, it almost sounds as if you've already decided to impose that second option on all of us."

Superman firmly shook his head. "No, we won't be imposing a 'one size fits all' solution upon the five of you; not when it would involve forcibly altering your personalities. I felt that both options were unpleasant enough, albeit in different ways, that each of you should be allowed a fair chance to mull it over and _decide_ which outcome is less offensive to your own sensibilities."

Other-Green Lantern still seemed to be carrying the ball for his teammates. "So either our bodies are locked away forever but our _minds_ remain free, or else the other way around?"

"Given your strenuous efforts to limit the choices of _billions_ of other people, I'm not really feeling your pain," the good John Stewart interjected. "Would you rather we had just lobotomized all five of you on the spot and dumped you at the front gate of Arkham Asylum? Now _that_ would be poetic justice. Luckily for you, _we_ see a bunch of objections—ethical _and_ otherwise—to doing it that way."

Two proud men glared at each other.

Ten other people in the room watched with interest.

Nothing else happened for a bit.

Normally, when it came to taking a stand on principle and glaring at someone who stubbornly refused to grasp the point, Shayera would have bet money on John Stewart to outlast any human opponent. In fact, she'd give at least 5-2 odds in his favor unless it were Batman he was trading glares with. But when John Stewart was, in effect, looking daggers at John Stewart (and vice versa), the situation promised to turn into a very long stalemate before either man flinched and looked away.

Unless someone else spoke up and shifted everyone's focus to another subject, of course. (She wondered if she ought to.)

Actually, it was Batman himself who did so. "Let me clarify one thing. For anyone who takes that second option, we'll make arrangements to assure that even if you unexpectedly lose a good job, you will still have sufficient resources—trust funds, or something—to guarantee you won't feel 'compelled' to take up a life of crime in order to avoid becoming broke and homeless. We aren't just trying to turn you from super-powered criminals into the more mundane variety."

"You make it sound so cozy. But what about my _wings_?" Other-Hawkgirl demanded. "Were you planning to amputate them so I would 'fit in' better? And then make me forget I ever had them, so I wouldn't weep over the loss?"

Superman looked shocked. "That didn't even come up."

"If you _aren't_ planning to cut them off, then _where_ would you dump me to 'start a new life' if I agreed to this mind-altering perversion? Three of my friends could simply change their clothes and pass for 'normal' in one of your cities—but there aren't all that many winged women strolling around on your world, are there? I never noticed any other green-skinned Martians, either."

"Actually, we were thinking of having Doctor Fate change everybody's faces," Flash put in helpfully. "That would work for your J'onn's coloring and all, and I betcha Fate could make your wings disappear in the blink of an eye! No pain; no scars!"

Shayera opened her mouth to say something scathing—and then bit her tongue as someone's boot kicked her right ankle.

It wasn't difficult to identify the perpetrator; John Stewart happened to be sitting in the chair on her right. Lucky thing it had been him—the _only_ man on this planet who was likely to get some leeway from Shayera Hol where "unauthorized touching" was concerned.

Of course, he was _also_ the only man on this planet who had engaged in enough private chats with her for him to qualify as something of an expert on just what the loss of wings would mean to any red-blooded Thanagarian. That explained why he'd found it prudent to forestall the blistering things she'd _wanted_ to say about Flash's lack of sensitivity.

_Probably for the best,_ she decided reluctantly. _No need to give the Justice Lords the _pleasure_  
of seeing us squabbling among ourselves. _

Meanwhile, her counterpart was just glaring silently at Flash, who was saying impatiently, "Hey, if you don't like the idea, settle for the 'comfortable early retirement in a secluded location' option instead!" He still didn't seem to grasp the depth of Other-Hawkgirl's outrage at his previous carefree suggestion. (Perhaps because Shayera herself had glared at him so often over the last few years that he had developed partial immunity?)

"Ignore him," John Stewart said quickly. "Who ever said the only places you could end up were right here on _Earth?_ My power ring and I could certainly give you a lift back to Thanagar when this is over. You'd have a new face and a new name, and still be unable to fly, but at least you would be among your own kind."

"Hold it!" Other-Hawkgirl snapped. "If you're willing to send me all the way back to Thanagar to get me out of your hair, why bother with a mindwipe and a face-change on top of that?"

Batman displayed all of his usual warmth and tact as he answered her question. "One: Because you know far too much that could be used against us—or against others. Two: Because you deserve _severe_ punishment for the things you did on the Other Earth. Three: Because we aren't sending you back to the Thanagar of your native universe where we would lose track of your activities, and we sure don't need you trying to _replace_ our Shayera on _her_ Thanagar—as might happen if you were allowed to 'return home' before she did, while retaining her name and her face and the relevant memories to convince her old friends that you were the real deal. Four: Because it would be hypocritical to _merely_ exile you from this world when we are _not_ letting your accomplices off so lightly. Each of you should have known better."

Flash added cheerfully, "But other than all that . . . no special reason!"

Other-Shayera sneered at both of them. "I will accept simple imprisonment instead. As long as I remain in my right mind, there is always the hope that things will change to my advantage."

Hawkgirl couldn't say she was surprised. If the shoe were on the other foot, she wouldn't have "volunteered" to have her old identity scrubbed away, either.

"Then I'm staying with her," Other-Green Lantern said, which likewise didn't come as much of a surprise. Somewhere along the line, Shayera had gotten the impression that those two had gone a lot further with their "mutual attraction" thing than she and her friend John had ever done in this timeline . . . maybe something bad had happened to Hro Talak in the other universe, thereby removing a moral dilemma?

Batman was making notes. "Two for comfortable imprisonment. Do the rest of you need more time to think it over?"

Other-Wonder Woman raised her chin. "An Amazon is not meant to be caged. On the other hand, drinking the waters of Lethe has ample precedent. If we can agree on a few basic points, I will venture to start a new life."

"What did you have in mind?" Diana asked immediately.

"Powers or no powers, I still know how to fight. Why should I lose those skills? If someone attacks me, won't I be entitled to defend myself?"

"Not a ridiculous proviso," Diana admitted. "I think we can work it out. You simply won't remember that you were trained on _Themyscira_."

Other-Wonder Woman added, "I should like to hear the decisions of my friends, though, before we settle the terms of my . . . exile."

Nobody objected. Batman made another note.

Two Justice Lords still needed to announce their choices (if they were willing to make any).

Other-J'onn stared coldly at his local counterpart and said distinctly: "You are _not_ welcome to tamper with my mind. I no longer have the means to block you, but I certainly shall not assuage your conscience by 'asking for it.'"

"Confinement it is," Batman said, making yet another note.

It came down to Other-Superman. He didn't ask for more time; he must have been thinking hard while his buddies were casting their votes for one fate or the other. "I can see you just aren't ready to use the necessary methods to clean up your world. It would be cruel to make me live every day _knowing_ I could do a vastly better job. So go ahead and blot out my memories; set me up with a life as a 'normal' person; it's what I would have been if I'd grown up on Krypton!"

"Any preferences for your new career?" Superman asked. "English teacher? Technical writer? Or even something in journalism?"

His counterpart shrugged. "Anything along those lines could be a decent fit."

"Not in Metropolis, though."

"Of course not. Memories or no memories, if I started seeing _her_ all the time in the local news, I'd probably end up obsessing on her_. You_ would hate that."

"True. And I'm not about to introduce the new you to a certain redhead from the old home town, either."

Other-Superman chuckled. "I didn't expect you to." The really surprising thing was that his chuckle, and then the tone of his spoken words, had sounded neither bitter nor forced; a show of composure which Shayera had to admire in a man who'd recently fallen from being "a King of the World" to "a powerless expatriate about to lose his memories."

"Something out on the West Coast?" Superman suggested. "That ought to reduce the chance of awkward meetings after you make your fresh start."

The two Kryptonians were referring, without naming names, to matters connected with the "secret identity" stuff that many of the costumed heroes of Earth took so seriously. Shayera knew the special _her_ in Metropolis must be Lois Lane, the _old home town_ was Smallville, and _a certain redhead_ might be . . . Lana Lang, the fashion designer?

She had remembered to let her eyes wander away during that conversation between Superman and his depowered counterpart, as if she found it all too _cryptic_ to be interesting. Since Superman, Flash, and Batman hadn't shared their other identities with the rest of the League, Shayera wasn't supposed to know anything about the private lives of "Clark Kent," "Wally West," and "Bruce Wayne." But of course she did. (However, she hadn't bothered to relay those particular bits of data to her superiors. Located light-years away, they didn't really need to know such trivia . . . at the moment.)

"Kal and I are the only ones taking the amnesia option?" Other-Wonder Woman said thoughtfully. "In that case, here is one of my other . . . requests. Make us neighbors!"

Shayera's friend Diana (whom she kept thinking of as the _real_ Wonder Woman) raised her eyebrows at that. "Neighbors?"

"You heard me. Put us in apartments on the same floor of the same building, or some such thing. Let us at least remember that we _are_ good friends. It's not as if we will have any _other_ old friends or relatives to call upon in time of need, will we?" The two Wonder Women locked gazes. "_My_ mother and all _my_ sister Amazons will be on the far side of a dimensional barrier for the rest of my life, and I don't hear you offering to _share_ the affection of their local analogs with me!"

"No, you sure don't," Diana conceded. "I am not planning to let you settle down on _my_ Themyscira. I wouldn't lie to my mother about your origins, and it would be extremely hard on her nerves if I told her to consider you as my long-lost evil twin who now had amnesia and a new face."

J'onn J'onnz raised a hand and got everyone's attention before he spoke. "This raises another point we didn't discuss before: The sad severing of personal ties. I think we can afford to give each prisoner enough time to compose any 'final messages' they may wish to send back through the portal to their nearest and dearest on the Other Earth."

"And I suppose that before you send them through, you'll be scanning our minds to see if we have hidden any nasty code phrases in our exact choice of words? Activating certain contingency plans, for instance?" Other-Hawkgirl's tone was cynical.

"Of course," J'onn said blandly. "I simply wasn't going to belabor the obvious by mentioning such an unpleasant subject."

After parting messages had been written out and signed by each of the five Justice Lords, and their contents had been vetted by The Martian Manhunter's telepathic prying, the messages were placed in a plastic container to be tossed back through the portal when Other-Batman opened it at the agreed-upon time. No one living would be passing through; not unless Other-Batman tried to spring a surprise on them from his end.

(As it turned out: he didn't.)

* * *

A secret prison was carved out of the heart of a mountain in the depths of Antarctica, hundreds of miles away from any research station maintained by any human government. Superman did most of the heavy work, moving at super-speed and drilling through rock with his invulnerable body, but all of the League (and some of the Lords) played a role in suggesting details for this, that, or the other portion of the complex. The library was extensive, for instance, and a wide range of video games were available. The prison ought to be self-sustaining for a long, long time in a worst-case scanario. For instance, tons of stored food—literally tons—were stashed in deep-freezes and storerooms, in case the flow of supplies (being teleported in from the Watchtower at weekly intervals) was ever cut off.

Spot checks on the three inmates, via concealed sensors, confirmed that while they are having some trouble with boredom, they were not making any serious attempt to escape. (Not that getting out of the complex would have done them much good, considering how far a trek it would be to any other inhabited area. This had been explained to them, although they didn't know their exact latitude and longitude.)

Meanwhile, the former Other-Wonder Woman was now known as Cynthia Terruna. She worked as a martial arts instructor in Los Angeles, specializing in teaching women how to defend themselves against overly aggressive males. She sometimes served as a stunt double for Hollywood actresses.

The former Other-Superman was now known as Dan Reed, a technical writer for a California-based subsidiary of WayneTech, composing owner's manuals and the like for various products. In his spare time, he worked on what he hoped would be the next Great American Novel.

The two of them lived in adjacent condos, which they owned free and clear. Cynthia distinctly remembered having inherited hers from her late mother. Dan knew he had bought his with money received from his late father's life insurance. They also knew they had been friends for many years, long before either moved into their current residences; Dan having deliberately chosen a place in that condominium community on the recommendation of Cynthia, a woman of excellent taste.

Each of them also received a monthly check from assets held in trust, enough money to live on if necessary, even if they had suddenly lost their current jobs (and there was no reason to expect that). Any way you looked at it, hunger and homelessness were not likely to become problems—unless these two developed expensive vices and got head over heels in debt, which was not happening.

Microminiaturized sensors embedded in various places, both in the neighboring condos and in the Antarctic prison, had consistently _failed_ to pick up any trace of resurgent superpowers in the months since the fates of the Justice Lords had been determined.

Shayera had finally decided to _not_ mention this case in her secret reports back to Thanagar. She trusted Hro Talak to behave honorably, but there was no telling who else had access to her reports, nor what they might want to do with "spare copies" of members of the Justice League.

Still and all, if Other-Hawkgirl had not obviously been in love with Other-John Stewart, then Shayera _might_ have offered to let her depowered analog go home when a Thanagarian warship appeared in Earth's skies, several months later. But as was, she didn't think that would be doing either of those two prisoners any favors, and there was no need to rush now that "regular diplomatic relations" were being established between the two worlds, right?

Her snap reaction was strongly reinforced by her subsequent discovery of the plan to destroy the entire Earth as a side effect of a last-ditch plan to outmaneuver the Gordanians. A government that would do that to a nonthreatening planetary population was a government that might, for instance, do something equally nasty to an ex-Green Lantern in hopes of extracting secrets from his brain which might have "military significance."

Shayera didn't know if the Guardians of the Universe would feel the need to retaliate against a regime that had tortured an alternate-universe-analog of one of their own hand-picked Green Lanterns, but she deemed it best not to find out. (On a similar note, she had serious doubts about whether the Guardians would have just shrugged and looked the other way if Hro's forces had managed to wipe out Earth and all its inhabitants, but apparently Hro had been willing to take the appalling risk of placing the Thanagarian military in a situation where it was simultaneously fighting separate wars with the Gordanians _and_ the entire Green Lantern Corps! Just another sign that their romance had never been meant to be.)

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

1. In a comic book published in 1981, the Earth-One Superman helped his depowered clone establish a new life as "Dan Reed," a well-known journalist. (The real Dan Reed had recently died, but Superman was able to cover that up and give his clone some plastic surgery and hypnotically implanted memories to let the clone slide smoothly into the other guy's life without anyone else ever catching on.) I decided to swipe the name; it seems appropriate for a very similar situation involving DCAU characters!

2. In a comic book published in 1953, Wonder Woman first met an alternate-universe analog of herself. Same face, different name; the analog was called "Tara Terruna." I decided to swipe the "Terruna" part; it seemed fitting to pay homage to the first time a "Wonder Woman analog" ever appeared in any medium! Then I changed the first name to "Cynthia" to maintain the whole "named after a moon goddess" theme. ("Cynthia" was occasionally used to refer to Artemis (or Diana) in classical Graeco-Roman mythology..)

3. A year ago, in my rough draft for this chapter, I had Shayera thinking that she _didn't_ know Superman's other identity. But I reconsidered and rewrote. I want to explain why. (Warning! If you honestly _don't care_ whether she knew about "Clark Kent, the mild-mannered reporter" at the time this story is set, you may prefer to skip the rest of this Note.)

In the three-part "Starcrossed," Batman revealed his own secret ID (and Flash's, and Superman's) while telling the other Leaguers to split up into pairs (in civilian clothes) and find their way to Wayne Manor to regroup. Hawkgirl was _not_ present in that scene—but later she caught up with the rest of the Justice League _at Wayne Manor_ and warned them that she had just found out the real Thanagarian strategy involved _destroying_ Earth.

Shayera's ability to find the League so quickly at Wayne Manor bothered me when I first watched that scene, years ago; it seemed like a plot hole. Out of all the places in Gotham City where the mysterious Batman might reside, how did she know where to start looking? And since loyal Thanagarian troops _only_ knew where to look for her because of a bug that had been planted on her by Kragger, it seems they didn't already have Batman's secret identity and home address in their databases as a result of any of Shayera's old reports.

I finally decided that, in all likelihood, over the last few years Hawkgirl had learned _even more_ about her teammates than they initially realized when the truth about her role as a spy came out (earlier in "Starcrossed"). Specifically, she had discovered items which she had _never_ seen fit to pass along to her superiors back on Thanagar—such as the name "Bruce Wayne" (and, by extension, "Clark Kent" and "Wally West"). She probably told herself those names had no military significance, and were really nobody else's business. But when the time came that she wanted to track down a fugitive Batman, she knew where he normally hung his cape!

Ergo, as I finished up this story (set well before "Starcrossed"), I worked on the theory that Hawkgirl, as result of crafty espionage using Thanagarian technology, _already_ knows a lot about Superman's private life (and Batman's, and Flash's), but that nobody else in the entire universe is _aware_ that she has learned those things—with the sole exception of Shayera's Justice Lords counterpart, who had compiled essentially the same dossiers on her own teammates in that parallel world!


End file.
